Wamide’s Newsletter

Hey you, Every weekend, I go to the shop close to my house, buy my groceries and pay by transfer. And every weekend, nobody asks me to show the alert. No "wait let me confirm," no side-eye. I send it, pick up my things and go. I realised how important that was, especially in a culture that loves to preach "smartness." Someone hands me food before the money is even confirmed, and I didn't get that overnight. It came from showing up every weekend, paying on time again and again, until I stopped being a customer they had to watch and became a regular they know. People glorify cutting corners, overpromising, underdelivering and sneaking through loopholes. But there is an undeniable weight to having integrity in the small things. That's the thing about trust, nobody gives it to you in one moment. It's built from small things you'd think are ordinary. Paying when you said you would. Showing up when you said you would. Doing what you said you'd do even ...

Hey you, I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. Okay, wait. Don’t close the page, this isn’t a gloomy newsletter and nobody’s funeral is being planned here. I've been thinking about the death of things that were once very much alive in our lives; friendships, seasons, jobs, places, routines, dreams and versions of ourselves. The things that end without anyone necessarily dying. They sometimes just stop being. We talk a lot about beginnings, jobs, relationships, new chapters. We love a fresh start. But endings? Not so much. We tend to treat them like failures. Like if a friendship ends, someone must have done something terrible. If a career no longer feels right, you must have made the wrong choice. If you outgrow a dream, you start wondering whether you were ever serious about it in the first place. Sometimes nothing went wrong, it just died. There are things I used to care about deeply that I don’t care about anymore, there are people I once thought I would know forever who ...

Hey, you. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that I should be the kind of person who can do everything alone. You know the type. They disappear for weeks, carry everything themselves, and somehow never seem to need help.  Somewhere along the way, I bought into the idea that independence is the final form, and that needing people is something you eventually outgrow.  I really wanted to be that person, mostly because I thought I was supposed to be. The funny thing is, if you met me for the first time, you’d probably think I am. I’m socially awkward enough that I spend an embarrassing amount of time replaying conversations in my head, I overthink texts, I  sometimes wonder if I’ve spoken too much or too little, and I can be quiet in rooms full of people. I mistook all of these things for being someone who preferred solitude.  Turns out, they’re two completely different things. Because one thing I’ve learned about myself, over and over again, is this: I ...

Hey, you. It's Monday morning. It's 7:13am and it is raining in Lagos the way Lagos rain has no business raining; especially because of the kinds of atrocities you guys are committing in this city. The sky has a personal grievance with us all and has waited specifically for today, for this commute, for the exact moment you stepped outside. Your shoe is already slightly wet. You haven't even gotten to work yet and something has already been taken from you.  Then you're in the car,  in thick traffic on 3rd mainland bridge, and your brain has already started doing the thing it does every Monday - calculation. Rent. Electricity bill. Internet. Fuel. Food. The thing your mom mentioned last week. The goal you set in January that looked possible but the chances are getting bleaker by the day. You're doing math you didn't sign up to do early in the morning, in someone else's car, in the rain.  There's a version of adulthood that was sold to us. Go to schoo...

I know you. You noticed the slight shift in someone's tone halfway through a conversation and spent the rest of the day quietly turning it over in your mind. You walked into a room and somehow left carrying feelings that weren't even yours to begin with. I know you. Because on most days, I am you. And it's genuinely exhausting.  I've been sitting with what it actually means to be someone who feels things at full volume. Not the romanticised version, but the real, unglamorous, sometimes overwhelming version of being a person who cannot, for the life of them, just let things go. You notice everything. The micro-expression, the message that came back two hours later with a slightly different energy, the thing that was said and the louder thing that wasn't. You are, essentially, a very sophisticated emotional radar. It really is an extraordinary thing to be. Feeling deeply has shaped everything good about you. The emotional intelligence that took others years to develop...

 Hey, you. It's a good thing to be kind. To be the thoughtful, available, dependable friend. The one who shows up, figures it out, checks in, helps out, and remembers the little things. That’s a beautiful thing in and of itself. But don’t let your kindness kill you. Why are you always available for everyone else’s emergencies and somehow nobody notices when you're running on 2%? There’s a difference between being a good person and making yourself endlessly useful in people’s lives without ever stopping to ask one important question: "does this person even value my presence or effort?"  Because sometimes, in the name of love, loyalty, or just “this is the kind of person I am,” you start shrinking yourself. You become smaller so other people can feel bigger. You give and give until your own cup is empty and somehow you’re still standing there with a jug, asking who else needs water. Can we be serious?😭. Not everyone should benefit from your labor, your patience, your ...